These are old archived entries from my journal, Ornamental Illness. I have eliminated all graphics (except those in context of an entry) to save on my bandwidth usage.


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Saturday, May 11, 2002

DREAM-Secret Federal Express Agent Woman

Dream was really complex and hard to remember all the details. I was at my former job as if I was picking up after a long absence, as opposed to picking up after having quit six years ago. I specifically remember my supervisor was there, and we were attending a launch meeting of a new typesetting project. I would be doing the illustrations as usual. As we were sitting at a table in a very dark and dimly lit room, we were interrupted by a Fed Ex delivery person who delivered a small package right to me. I was surprised they didn't have to ask who I was and if I was present. Then the dream shifted. I was walking with some people in a small town that seemed to be at least 40 years ago...very Mayberry. We walked up to one building that was like an old fashioned duplex house with one main porch. In one picture window I saw a strange dog. It had a terrier-ish (Dandy Dinmont?) hair cut, but the face looked like an Affenpinscher or a Brussel's Griffon, except it was larger, like the size of an medium-size dog (40 lb?) I saw a man in that window. In the other picture window in the part of the house we were headed towards I saw a white puma. We went into that apartment...it was huge, like the lobby of a hotel. We were there to pick up some person...I think she looked sort of like Laura Dern. She was the daughter of one of the people I was with. Then we went into a very old fashioned soda fountain/diner. We sat down, and again, someone from Fed Ex found me and gave me a package. I asked the delivery person, who was a woman, how they knew who I was...did they have some secret intelligence software that could identify me? She told me that's what they used. Then she showed me how it worked. This laser equipment scans people and when it finds the correct person who the package is to, it shoots out a stream of sweet liquid at them. Very weird. I also remember something about a beagle puppy playing with Plato, and the basement of my parent's house, but it was very vague.

Posted by Ann on 05/11/02@09:08 AM CST ..::Link::..

Friday, May 10, 2002

Fathers who never grew up

Why are fathers such self-righteous, self-centered, paranoid freaks? No, I'm not talking about my own in this instance, but it sure seems to be such a universal trait as far as all the fathers I've known. This last case just takes the cake. All I can say is WHAT A G*D*M* A*S*O*E.

As bad as his relationship with his adopted father was, at least Stan didn't have to grow up with the genetic one.

Damn.

I'm sick of sicko people. I'm sick of them taking everything you say as a personal attack on them while they feel they have license to insult you no end. I could write a large essay on this nutcase, but I think I just need a good cry for now.

If it weren't for the fact that I've encountered this type of whacko before, so many times before, it would be more shocking than anything. Now it's more like delayed stress syndrome or whatever that is.

Posted by Ann on 05/10/02@01:16 PM CST ..::Link::..

Surrealism

The latest I heard on the pipe bomber was that he wanted to place bombs in mail boxes that when plotted on a map, formed the shape of a smiley face. Granted, I heard this in the morning on the radio when I usually sleep and dream, so I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Nope...I was awake. This is surreal. It's like something out of a bad B movie, except the movie version would form the letter of his first name or something significant. But a smiley face? It brings to mind a famous picture I've seen of a photo of an exploded nuclear bomb with a smiley face superimposed on it. The other day they showed the pipe bomber on tv being escorted by the feds. He had a goofy grinning expression. The following day I heard someone on the radio refer to him as looking like Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, "What, me worry?" "What, me worry? I'll be in a safe cushy padded cell being fed three squares a day while my friends will have to face the tough job market after college." Maybe the smiley face point of the whole thing is that nobody was killed in this most cowardly expression of post-adolescent disillusionment.

Hey, go check out Google today. Gotta love a search engine that remembers artists' birthdays, even dead ones.

Posted by Ann on 05/10/02@09:07 AM CST ..::Link::..

DREAMs-Cowardly Lions and more...oh my

1. I was with Tim and a couple friends of his, I think, or maybe it was just one friend. Stan was not with us. We were going to a restaurant that was in a sort of modern multi-level building. I remember walking up an down several flights of stairs. In a hallway in a lower level that we had to enter to get to the restaurant, several curly-permed mullet-haired women in their early twenties passed by us and when they saw me, they made faces and one of them bumped me with her shoulder. (Oy...skanks...can I not even escape them in the safehaven of my dreams?) I turned to the people I was with and asked them if they saw that. No one really noticed except me. We were seated at the restaurant, and Tim had to go somewhere, so I was sitting at a table with this other friend of his (who at times seemed like a former male lover of his, but sometimes looked like a woman, but not in a drag-queen way...in a very plain and normal way)...whe was sitting toward the wall on one side of the table and I was on the other side sitting toward the aisle. It was an awkward moment as we didn't know eachother. I was wondering if Stan would make an appearance. I guess he had to work late.

2. I was in a grocery store and looked at the checkout line and saw my friend Russ and his son. I said "Russ" and he turned and looked and was surprised to see me. My friend and his wife, Lamya was nearby with their daughter. I don't remember what we were talking about, but suddenly Russ put his arm around my waist and we started singing "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz..." and started skipping down the aisles in the grocery store. Weird.

3. There was a male lion in our house. Every once in a while it would get ahold of one of our cats, but the cat was able to get away. Then one time it was in a closet area and I heard a lot of noises, like one of our cats was struggling. Then the lion started running out of the closet and it appeared to have something in its jaws. We started hitting it to make it spit out the cat. Very scary.

Posted by Ann on 05/10/02@08:49 AM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, May 9, 2002

DREAM-The Big House

This is one of the more vivid dreams I've had lately. Stan and I had bought a new old house. This one was huge, an old Victorian from the 19th century. Everything in it was in a grand scale...windows were large, ceilings were high. There was a lot of space and the rooms were big. I don't remember that much of the house itself, but I do remember the bedroom that we were moving into. Much of it was done up in olive and gold colors. For some reason, we had two beds in the bedroom, and when asked, I said it was for when Stan snores (Why would I want him in the same room when he's snoring? That makes no sense). Even with two beds in the bedroom, it was gigantic. There was also a refrigerator and a sink in there, as if it had formerly been a kitchen. I was excited at the thoughts of breakfasts in bed. There was one cabinet that looked like a refrigerator and it housed an old fashioned telephone system. In the refrigerator, there was a lot of candy--I specifically remember different packages/flavors of "Good 'n' Plenty" (why?). There were a lot of people milling around the house as if there was a going away party for the former residents. I remember an older man walking around, getting food out of the refrigerator. He was sort of large with curly grey hair, dressed sort of slobbily. There were also these young girls...I'm not sure how old...3 to 10 or so. I was lying down in the bed and they wanted to lie down and snuggle with me (weird). One of them was snuggling right beside me and wearing pink pajamas. She said she knew who used to live here before. I asked her who, and she said "Daniel Pearl." I asked her "Really? Daniel Pearl?" Later, I saw her mother and asked her if Daniel Pearl really used to live there. Her mother rolled her eyes and said no, and I could tell that it was just another one of those tall tales her daughter likes to tell. I also remember looking at a very large window by the sink. It had very large window sills, and I was so excited thinking of all the plants I could put on it. Still, it wasn't as nice as our "real" bedroom, nor did it have as much natural daylight, and I was a little disappointed about that. For some weird reason, our "real" bedroom was in the downstairs of this house, so we were schlepping all the furniture upstairs. Then later in the dream, I was in midtown Fort Collins with Stan and some other people who were our friends, but I don't know who they were. I was standing on the northeast corner of College and Laurel, crossing College. I remember walking by the building on the northwest corner (which used to be Rocky Mountain Records and Tapes back in the time I lived there) and seeing my reflection in the window. I looked thinner and taller, and was wearing a long, slim skirt. I was sort of running...I don't know why. I was heading toward some store, but I forgot what it was I wanted to buy.

Posted by Ann on 05/09/02@09:37 AM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

DREAMs-Just odd...no big whoop

I was watching some white man with tribal paint on his face talk to some native peoples...I don't know what culture they were though. He was trying to explain the concept of "country" to them. As he was doing this, he was painting more warpaint on his forehead.

I was in a weird place...part store, part school, part visitors headquarters at a national or state park. I was waiting in line to use these hybrid dressing room/bathrooms. It was very strange.

Posted by Ann on 05/08/02@09:40 AM CST ..::Link::..

Tuesday, May 7, 2002

Could you help me?

I just tried customizing the scrollbar colors on the following test documents. Because I'm on a Mac, and this does not work on Mac browsers, I have no way to check them to make sure they look ok. Could you let me know if something seems out of whack? Thanks!

Test documents open to new windows. There is just one page to check for each link, which is a copy of my index page...the link on each of these pages brings you back to the main journal page, so no need to click it, but you might want to mouse over it and pretend to press down to check to see if all the colors match up well with the scrollbar colors.

Page A Page B Page C Page D Page E Page F

Posted by Ann on 05/07/02@04:15 PM CST ..::Link::..

You know...one of those square states out west...

Yikes...authorities think the mail bomb suspect is from Wisconsin. It's sure weird watching his/her/their trail on tv...looks like they took a trip down I-80, the same way we go when we travel. One amusing thing on the local news last night...they showed a map of the US with the states highlighted where they discovered pipe bombs. They said that the most recent bomb was discovered in Colorado. Our local news, which is so full of wisdom, had the state of Wyoming highlighted instead. Makes me wonder if Colorado confuses Wisconsin with Minnesota. Someone really ought to give those kids a geography lesson. My goodness, I knew all my states and capitols by the time I was eight. Granted, I've forgotten a few of the capitols in these 30-plus years, but I can still label all the states on a blank map.

Posted by Ann on 05/07/02@02:30 PM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM-You know it's that time of the year when you dream of tornados

We were listening to the radio or watching tv and the weather report was on and it was predicting rainy weather for weeks on end. Stan was quite mad because he wouldn't be able to work on the house or in the garden. We were in a very strange house...I can't describe it too well, but there weren't many windows, yet I could see outside through skylights or some strange window system. I heard a strange noise outside and looked up and could see the shadow of a funnel cloud passing right over us. It freaked me out. Then the sky turned very blue and cloudless as if there had been no storm. I went outside and looked at our house and saw that the roof and a certain corner of it had been quite damaged. I called Stan to come look too, and when he saw the destruction, he told me that we would have to contact our friends and tell them that we couldn't do anything with them. I took that to mean that we wouldn't be able to go out to Colorado this fall and asked him if this is what he meant. He said yes. I told him I'd better call my mom. I went back into the house and dialed my parents' number. It was the strangest thing...there was a teenage girl in my house who was also at my parent's house. She was their granddaughter, but she was not my daughter--I have no children and I am an only child. Go figure that Lynchian conundrum out. She looked like a cross between Drew Barrymore and my neighbor's teenage daughter. When she picked up the phone at my parent's house, I asked to speak to my mom, her grandmother. When she put my mom on the line, my mom couldn't hear me speak. I kept shouting, but she must have thought the line was dead, so she hung up. I tried calling back, meanwhile, the teen girl had turned the radio up and I thought maybe that's why my mom couldn't hear because the radio was on. I couldn't figure out how to turn the radio off, so I unplugged instead. The teen girl answered the phone again, and when I asked to speak to her grandmother and told her who I was, she put my mom on again, and still my mom didn't respond to me because she couldn't hear me. I shouted outloud, "MOM!" probably waking Stan up. I must have given up on trying to contact my parents because as I shouted in my sleep, I woke up and went back into a similar dream...similar house, except this time I was amongst people I knew. There was a guy there who I suspect may have liked me at one time, or maybe he still does, or maybe he never did...I don't know. The people in the room were reading books and magazines and things on low tables...one had to sit on the floor in order to position one's legs under the table. This guy was sitting crosslegged on the floor and pulled me down to sit on his lap. Then he started scooting with me on his lap toward the table. It was most disturbing because I could feel certain things while I was sitting on his lap, if you know what I mean. It disturbed me a lot, because he knew he was doing this to a married woman...someone married to a friend of his.

Posted by Ann on 05/07/02@09:56 AM CST ..::Link::..

Monday, May 6, 2002

Baby Finch Update

I never thought baby birds were cute. I thought they were some of the most ugliest of the immature stage, considering all kinds of babies, pups, kits, kids, young, larvae, etc. But these little finches are cute! They're now sticking their heads over the top of the nest with their beaks open, eyes still closed. There's at least three, maybe four.

I guess it's different when they're your own, so to speak.

Posted by Ann on 05/06/02@02:49 PM CST ..::Link::..

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I forgot to mention this tale that Tim told me on Friday. The other day Tim was downtown. Madison has its population of panhandlers just like any city. One approached Tim, asking for money. I don't know if Tim gave him anything, I rather doubt it. But shortly after, he heard a strange ringing sound. He looked around. The panhandler pulled out his cellphone and answered it.

I think we should all give money to panhandlers so that they can pay their cellphone bills, don't you?

Posted by Ann on 05/06/02@08:30 AM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM-Creepy Landlord Real Estate Agent Type Guy

I dreamt that Stan and I were moving out of our home =-C and into some condo in a multi-unit building. I could hear noises of children in the next door unit. I have no idea why we were doing this. We were talking to either a landlord or a real estate agent; I have no idea which it was as I don't know if we were going to be renting or buying. I remember the living room was done up in pink and mauve tones...how odd. After we put a downpayment of about $325 down on the deal, I went home and asked Stan if he remembered anything about them saying that they allowed pets, namely dogs. He couldn't remember, so we contacted the agent again. The agent said they didn't. I told them that we didn't want to go through with the deal. He got incensed that we would pull out of the deal, but I was saying that he was practicing shady real estate tactics because he didn't mention it to us. He asked "Do you realize that you will be out $325? Are having dogs really worth that?" What a jerk. We were threatenning to sue him.

Posted by Ann on 05/06/02@08:19 AM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:56 AM CST:05:20:02 ..::Link::..